ecember at the Mondavi Center is a month of music with some
concerts that are distinctly holiday-flavored, drawing from centuries
of traditions, from the classic to the contemporary, from Norway to Mexico.
As you might expect, many of these events are of a celebratory nature, such
as the wonderful Fiesta Navidad brought to us by our good friend Nati Cano
and his Mariachi Los Camperos.
The holidays and the approaching new year are also, for many of us, a time
for thoughtfulness and meditation, as well as celebration. A number of the
musical events this month allow ample space for reflection—on the significance
of holidays, on the renewal of a new year, and on what it means to live well as a
human being. Art gives us the space to have those reflections, and at such times,
the Mondavi Center can become something of a sanctuary, a bright place in the
darkness of the winter that provides sustenance and guidance in times that are not
always joyful for everyone.
In particular, you will find that kind of meditative space with two distinctly
different performances in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre: pianist Tord Gustavsen
and vocalist Solveig Slettahjell bring their lovely jazz-inflected holiday music to
the U.S. for the first time; and the Alexander String Quartet perform Beethoven’s
intensely hypnotic Grosse Fuge.
In Jackson Hall, Kronos Quartet’s selections of music by the eerily beautiful
Icelandic group Sigur Rós and other like-minded contemporary composers
might provide you with that thoughtful space. And 2010 in the Mondavi Center
concludes with Handel’s Messiah, a wonderful reminder of how we can be brought
together in a joyful space across centuries and religious traditions by the unifying
humanity of great music.
Before closing, I want to draw your attention to a very important event, the talk
by Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together
in the Cafeteria?, which culminates the many activities of the Campus Community
Book Project. We are proud to partner with UC Davis’s Office of Campus
Community Relations to bring this timely discussion into Jackson Hall on Friday,
December 10. I hope you will join us for Dr. Tatum’s talk.
All of us at the Mondavi Center wish everyone a very joyous holiday season.

Don Roth
Executive Director
Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts

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• Please remember that the taking of photographs
or the use of any type of audio or video recording
equipment is strictly prohibited.
• Please look around and locate the exit nearest you.
That exit may be behind you, to the side, or in front
of you. In the unlikely event of a fire alarm or other
emergency please leave the building through that exit.
• As a courtesy to all our patrons and for your safety,
anyone leaving his or her seat during the performance
may not be re-admitted to his/her ticketed seat while
the performance is in progress.

info

Accommodations for Patrons
with Disabilities
530.754.2787 • TDD: 530.754.5402
In the event of an emergency, patrons requiring
physical assistance on the Orchestra Terrace,
Grand Tier, and Upper Tier levels please proceed
to the elevator alcove refuge where this sign appears.
Please let us know ahead of time for any special
seating requests or accommodations. See p. 55 for
more information.

Membership 530.754.5436
Member contributions to the Mondavi Center
presenting program help to offset the costs of the
annual season of performances and lectures, and
provide a variety of arts education and outreach
programs to the community.
Friends of Mondavi Center 530.754.5000
Contributors to the Mondavi Center are eligible to
join the Friends of Mondavi Center, a volunteer
support group that assists with educational programs
and audience development.
Volunteers 530.754.1000
Mondavi Center volunteers assist with numerous
functions, including house ushering and the activities
of the Friends of Mondavi Center and the Arts and
Lectures Administrative Advisory Committee.

The artists and your fellow audience members appreciate silence during the performance. Please be sure that you have switched off all electronic devices.
Videotaping, photographing, and audio recording are strictly forbidden. Violators are subject to removal.

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MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Dec 2010 |

3

tord gustavsen, solveig slettahjell, and Sjur Miljeteig

Natt i Betlehem — A musical pilgrimage
In 2008, Solveig Slettahjell, trumpeter Sjur Miljeteig, and I traveled to Israel and Palestine to record this music in the Church
of the Nativity in Bethlehem. We installed ourselves in a historic
hotel in East Jerusalem, and traveled through the checkpoints
into Bethlehem every evening to record a few hours during the
night, after tourist hours and mass. We brought a laptop and
some basic recording gear, borrowed the only Steinway piano in
the Palestinian territories from the music conservatory there and
recorded in the Roman Catholic section of the church.

The songs:
I dennesøtejuletid
“In the Sweet Hour of Christmas”
A song about finding Christmas inside oneself.
Kling no klokka
“Ring Them Bells”
A call to celebration and meditation; we need both.
Some Children See Him

Doing this combined pilgrimage and recording session to the holy,
and yet so troubled and divided, land felt intensely meaningful.
We searched for musical intimacy and artistic honesty in all of this
and came up with stripped-down versions of Christmas hymns:
slow tempos, almost like meditations; silent moods, but with passion and dynamics building up when it felt right, and an understated gospel feel to many of the hymns. With all the political tensions and miseries of the region as a backdrop and undercurrent,
and with the historical sites and spiritual shrines right at our feet
while playing, it was one of the most intriguing and challenging
recording sessions we had ever done.
We have been developing this material in concert every December
since then, and the songs keep growing and evolving with us.
The repertoire consists of Scandinavian and English lyrics alike
and establishes a dialogue between well-known and lesser-known
hymns. The musical and spiritual content of the cherished songs
continues to be a great source of inspiration. They offer strong
melodies and carry the manifold mysteries of incarnation—“Be
born in us today”—where childlike simplicity and philosophical
depth walk hand-in-hand.

Mitt hjertealltidvanker
“My Heart Always Wanders where Jesus was Born”
A meditation on the poor and fragile newborn king, and about letting the miracle happen inside of us.
Sleep Holy Babe
Poor Little Jesus
Jegsyngerjulekvad
“I Sing a Christmas Chant”
About rejoicing in Christ now and forever.
Stillenatt
“Silent Night”
You all know it, but this version is a new Norwegian translation
or re-working, carried out by Erik Hillestad who also produced
the recording. I wish you could read it in Norwegian; it’s hard to
translate back.
Star Carol (Long Years Ago)

Most of these songs have been among our families’ most cherished
tunes all along, sung by all of us from childhood each year. The
Natt i Betlehem project has become a very personalized, biographical journey for all of us, connecting today’s creative explorations
with deeply rooted musical and spiritual heritage.
—Tord Gustavsen

O, Little Town of Bethlehem
Jul, jul, strålandejul
“The Glowing Light of Christmas”
About us longing for light in the months of darkness.

Showcasing wearable textiles and ornaments, a new exhibition at the UCD Design Museum, Vanishing Traditions:
Textiles and Treasures from Southwest China, opening in fall 2010, displays the life, culture, and continuing loss of
adornment skills of the minority people who live in Southwest China. The exhibition curator, Bea Roberts, shares her
visually superb collection, acquired during her early visits to the region, when the villages were primarily intact in their
cultural identity, before the traditions started to vanish in today’s globalization race.
At the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, we are deeply interested in the visual arts and the ways in which painting, photography,
and other forms may enhance the experience of the performing artists we present. Located at the north end of the Yocha Dehe Grand Lobby, the art display
case is a collaboration among the Mondavi Center, the Design Museum, the C. N. Gorman Museum, and the Richard L. Nelson Gallery & Fine Arts Collection.

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In addition to the Slow Motion Orchestra, Solveig performs solo
accompanying herself on the piano and has a duo with trumpeter
Sjur Miljeteig, a member of the Slow Motion Orchestra. She has
toured Norway and Europe extensively and visited other parts of
the world, including Russia, India, and Chile. She has given only a
few U.S. performances, the most recent at Spoleto Festival USA in
Charleston, South Carolina. Solveig’s work has repeatedly received
high marks from the press in Norway and abroad in such publications as The Guardian, The Independent, Die Welt, and Billboard.
Before starting on her solo career, Solveig collaborated with some
of Norway’s leading jazz artists, such as Sidsel Endresen and Jon
Balke, and worked in a diverse array of ensembles including experimental a cappella vocal groups, a funk band, and jazz/folk groups.
From childhood, her fundamental performing format has been to
be alone by the piano singing. She grew up with church music and
was very influenced by the black American spirituals that flooded
the Christian youth choirs of Norway in the 1980s. These and
Norwegian traditional hymns remain part of her basic musical
references and have influenced her deep and profound approach to
singing.

tord gustavsen, solveig slettahjell, and Sjur Miljeteig

Solveig Slettahjell
Solveig Slettahjell is a Norwegian singer, composer, lyricist, and
bandleader born in 1971. She studied at the Norwegian Academy
of Music and completed her master’s degree in 2000. She performs principally with her band of 10 years, the Slow Motion
Orchestra, and has released six albums: Slow Motion Orchestra
(2001); Silver (2004), for which she was awarded the Norwegian
Grammy, the Spellemannsprisen; Pixiedust (2005), a nominee
for the Spellemannsprisen; Good Rain (2006); Domestic Songs
(2007), devoted to Solveig’s solo work as singer and pianist; and
Tarpan Seasons (2009), based on Solveig’s commissioned piece
for the Norwegian jazz festival Vossajazz and also a nominee
for the Spellmannsprisen. Her first albums were recorded on the
Norwegian jazz label Curling Legs and licensed to the German/
International label ACT. In 2008, she started her collaboration
with the international label Universal and is now working on her
second album on this label.

The urge for individual expression fuses with acutely attentive
listening in creative interplay, making Tord a very special experience both as a soloist and as an ensemble player. While relating
to fields like Scandinavian folk music, gospel, Caribbean music,
and cool jazz alike, Tord’s ensembles present a unique universe of
lyricism and subtle funkiness. His way of conversing jazz history
with “Nordic” reflective moods and lyrical beauty brings about an
intriguing voice on today’s music scene.
Before starting his solo career, Tord had already been an important
part of the Norwegian jazz scene for several years. His playing
has formed a cornerstone in projects featuring some of Norway’s
finest singers, including Silje Nergaard, Siri Gjære and Kristin
Asbjørnsen. The Natt i Betlehem project with vocalist Solveig
Slettahjell and trumpet player Sjur Miljeteig is now his major
“side project,” offering a musical environment that highlights his
lyricism and expressive minimalism while establishing a fruitful dialogue with two of the most compelling “lyricists” on the
Norwegian music scene.
Sjur Miljeteig
Sjur Miljeteig has been working as a professional jazz trumpeter in
Norway since high school. He has toured most of the world with
artists such as Bugge Wesseltoft, Christian Wallumrød, Ingebrigt
Flaten, Tord Gustavsen, Trygve Seim and Paal Nilssen Love. He
has been working as a freelance trumpeter in all genres, but his
main project in recent years has been the Solveig Slettahjell Slow
Motion Orchestra, where he is one of the writers and producers. In
addition to his career as a musician, Sjur runs a recording studio
in the woods of Sweden, IS IT ART, where he works as a producer
for other artists and composers of music for film and TV.

Natt i Betlehem is Solveig, Tord and Sjur’s first album together and
also the first album where Solveig sings in Norwegian and delves
into the songs of her childhood.

Tord Gustavsen
Pianist Tord Gustavsen has released four albums under his own
name on the prestigious ECM label, with his ensemble and trio:
Changing Places (2003), The Ground (2005), Being There (2007),
and Restored, Returned (2009/2010). His music has been met by
critical approval around the world. The most recent release won
the Norwegian Grammy Award, the Spellemannsprisen. Tord has
received several other critical awards in the United Kingdom,
France, Australia, Germany, and Korea. His albums have been featured in publications such as Downbeat, Billboard, The New York
Times, The Guardian, and The Independent. Tord tours extensively
world-wide with his projects and has made several visits to the
U.S. and Canada over the last five years, appearing at festivals and
concert halls across the continent.

The artists and your fellow audience members appreciate silence during the performance. Please be sure that you have switched off all electronic devices.
Videotaping, photographing, and audio recording are strictly forbidden. Violators are subject to removal.

Printed on recycled paper. Please recycle this playbill for reuse.

MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Dec 2010 |

7

Lili Received the
GIFT of LIFE
Born two months early, Lili Jimenez
had a difficult start in life.
Weighing barely three pounds, Lili
suffered a host of ailments, including
a life-threatening intestinal disease
unique to preemies.
With little time to spare, Lili was
transferred to the neonatal intensive
care unit at UC Davis Children’s
Hospital—the region’s only
comprehensive children’s hospital.
After two complex surgeries, four
months of round-the-clock care and
lots of TLC, Lili was sent home to
a future now in full bloom.
At UC Davis Health System,
our next medical breakthrough just
may have your name on it.

Lili’s care team included
neonatologist Mark Underwood,
nurse Christa Mu and
other specialists in the research
and treatment of preterm
birth complications.

A gift for advancing health.

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| mondaviarts.org

String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, Op. 130
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born December 16, 1770, in Bonn; died March 26, 1827, in
Vienna)
Beethoven composed the Quartet in B‑flat Major between July and
December of 1825, and the music had its premiere in Vienna the
following March, almost exactly a year to the day before the composer’s death. This massive quartet, consisting of six movements
that span a total of nearly 50 minutes, concluded with a complex
and extremely difficult fugue that left the first audience stunned.
Beethoven, by this time totally deaf, did not attend the premiere,
but when told that the fourth and fifth movements had been so
enthusiastically applauded that they had to be repeated, he erupted
with anger at the audience: “Yes, these delicacies! Why not the
Fugue? Cattle! Asses!”
But it was not just the audience at the premiere that found the
concluding fugue difficult. With some trepidation, Beethoven’s
publisher asked the crusty old composer to write a substitute
finale and to publish the fugue separately. To everyone’s astonishment, Beethoven agreed to that request and wrote a new finale—a
good-natured rondo—in the fall of 1826. Since that time, critics
have debated which ending makes better sense artistically, and this
is one of those debates that will probably continue forever. For
generations, the Quartet in B‑flat Major was performed with the
substitute rondo as the finale, but recently that practice appears
to have evolved, and quartets today are increasingly following
Beethoven’s original intention and concluding the Quartet in B-flat
Major with the Grosse Fuge; this performance offers the quartet in
its original form.
In either version, this music presents problems of unity, for its six
movements are quite different from each other. The issue is intensified when the Grosse Fuge is used as the finale, for this movement is so individual, so fierce, that it does seem an independent
statement. In its original form, the quartet consists of two huge
outer movements that frame four shorter movements (two scherzos and two slow movements). The music encompasses a huge
range of emotion, from the frankly playful to some of the most
deeply felt music Beethoven ever wrote. The unifying principle
of this quartet may simply be its disunity, its amazing range of
expression and mood.
The first movement, cast in the highly modified sonata form
Beethoven used in his final years, is built on two contrasting
tempos: a reverent Adagio and a quick Allegro that flies along on
a steady rush of 16th notes. These tempos alternate, sometimes
in sections only one measure long—there is some extraordinarily
beautiful music here, full of soaring themes and unexpected shifts
of key. By contrast, the Presto—flickering and shadowy—flits past
in less than two minutes; in ABA form, it offers a long center
section and a sudden close on the return of the opening material. The solemn opening of the Andante is a false direction, for it
quickly gives way to a rather elegant movement in sonata form,
full of poised, flowing, and calm music. Beethoven titled the fourth
movement Alladanzatedesca, which means “Dance in the German

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Alexander String quartet

Program Notes
By Eric Bromberger

Style”; in 3/8 meter, it is based on the rocking, haunting little tune
that opens the movement.
The Cavatina has become one of the most famous movements in
all Beethoven’s quartets. Everyone is struck by the intensity of its
feeling, though few agree as to what it expresses—some feel it
tragic, others view it as serene. Beethoven himself confessed that
even thinking about this movement moved him to tears. Near
the end comes an extraordinary passage that Beethoven marks
Beklemmt (“Oppressive”): the music seems to stumble and then
makes its way to the close over halting and uncertain rhythms.
This performance concludes with the Grosse Fuge Beethoven had
intended as the original finale. Let it be said right from the start:
the Grosse Fuge is a brilliant piece of music and a very tough one,
and it should come as no surprise that it has excited quite different responses. Though he was no particular admirer of Beethoven,
Stravinsky near the end of his long life came to know and respect
the late quartets, and his admiration for the Grosse Fuge led him
to call it an “absolutely contemporary piece of music that will
be contemporary forever.” At the other extreme, the iconoclastic
American critic B.H. Haggin was adamant that the Grosse Fuge
should be considered “inaccessible—except for a quiet and lovely
episode—by some music lovers who have listened to it repeatedly.”
The Grosse Fuge is in fact not one fugue, but three different fugal
sections, each in a contrasting tempo; Beethoven described it as a
“Grand Fugue, freely treated in some places, fugally elaborated in
others.” The brief Overtura suggests the shape of the fugue subject
in three different permutations (all of which will reappear and be
treated differently) and then proceeds directly into the first fugue,
an extremely abrasive Allegro in B-flat major that demands a great
deal from both performers and audiences. Much of the complexity here is rhythmic: not only does the fugue subject leap across
a span of several octaves, but its progress is often obscured by its
overlapping triple, duple, and dotted rhythms. The lyric, flowing
central section, a Menomosso e moderato in G-flat major, is fugal in
character rather than taking the form of a strict fugue. It gives way
to the Allegro molto e con brio, which is derived from the second
appearance of the fugue subject in the Overtura; here it bristles
with trills and sudden pauses. Near the close, Beethoven recalls
fragments of the different sections, then offers a full-throated
restatement of the fugue theme before the rush to the cadence.
Individual listeners may draw their own conclusions about the use
of the Grosse Fuge as a fitting close to this quartet, but there can
be no doubt that the Quartet in B‑flat Major—by turns beautiful,
aggressive, charming, and violent—remains as astonishing a piece
of music for us today as it was to that first audience in 1826.
Finale: Allegro from the String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born December 16, 1770, in Bonn; died March 26, 1827, in
Vienna)
This concert concludes with a sort of “programmed encore,”
the substitute rondo-finale that Beethoven composed in the fall
of 1826 after he had agreed to detach the Grosse Fuge from the
Quartet in B-flat Major and publish it separately. The substituted

MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Dec 2010 |

9

Alexander String quartet

rondo has troubled many listeners precisely because it is so different from the fugue it replaces. Where the fugue had provided
a violent—and disruptive—conclusion, the substitute finale has
seemed to some to go too far in the other direction. Such a view
may seem particularly true when the rondo is heard immediately
after the Grosse Fuge, as it is on this concert. After the abrasive
furies of the Grosse Fugue, the rondo will inevitably sound a little
sugar-coated, and those who disagree with Beethoven’s decision to
change finales note that the replacement movement rounds off too
smoothly a quartet whose whole thrust had been disunity.
Does the replacement finale, pleasing and engaging as it is on its
own terms, represent artistic capitulation—or a tacit admission
by Beethoven that the fugue had been wrong as a conclusion to
the quartet? What we can say is that it was Beethoven himself
who decided to detach this fugue, to write this new (and more
congenial) finale, and to regard the Grosse Fuge as an independent
work. It need not follow that every decision a composer makes
about his music is correct, and there are many who sharply regret
Beethoven’s decision. This concert offers the rare opportunity to
hear this music in the sequence Beethoven composed it and to
decide for ourselves.
Beethoven began this rondo-finale in September 1826 and mailed
the manuscript to his publisher on November 22. He returned to
Vienna the following week, took to bed, and died the following
March. This dancing, high-spirited music is the last that Beethoven
completed.

The Alexander String Quartet has performed in the
major music capitals of five continents, securing its standing
among the world’s premier ensembles over nearly three decades.
Widely admired for its interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart, and
Shostakovich, the quartet has also established itself as an important ad­vocate of new music through more than 25 commissions
and numerous premiere performances. At home in San Francisco,
the members of the Alexander String Quartet are a major artistic
pres­ence, serving as directors of the Morrison Chamber Music
Center at the School of Music and Dance in the College of
Creative Arts at San Francisco State University and Ensemble-inResidence of San Francisco Performances.
Over the past decade the Alexander String Quartet has added
considerably to its distinguished and wide-ranging discography.
Currently recording exclusively for the FoghornClassics label,
the Alexander’s most recent release (June 2009) is a complete
Beethoven cycle. Music Web International has described the performances on this new Beethoven set as “uncompromising in their
power, intensity, and spiritual depth,” while Strings Magazine
described the set as “a landmark journey through the greatest
of all quartet cycles.” FoghornClassics released a three-CD set
(Homage) of the Mozart quartets dedicated to Haydn in 2004.
Foghorn released a six-CD album (Fragments) of the complete
Shostakovich quartets in 2006 and 2007, and a recording of
the complete quartets of Pulitzer Prize-winning San Francisco
composer Wayne Peterson was released in 2008. BMG Classics
released the quartet’s first recording of the Beethoven cycle on its
Arte Nova label to tremendous critical acclaim in 1999.

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The Alexander String Quartet’s annual calendar of concerts
includes engagements at major halls throughout North America
and Europe. The quartet has appeared at Lincoln Center, the 92nd
Street Y, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City; Jordan
Hall in Boston; the Library of Congress and Dumbarton Oaks in
Washington, D. C.; and chamber music societies and universities
across North America. Recent overseas tours have included the
U.K., the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain,
Portugal, Switzerland, France, Greece, the Republic of Georgia,
and the Philippines. The many distin­guished artists to collaborate with the Alexander String Quartet include pianists Menahem
Pressler, Gary Graffman, Roger Woodward, Jeremy Menuhin, and
Joyce Yang; clarinetists Eli Eban, Charles Neidich, Joan Enric
Lluna, and Richard Stoltzman; cellists Lynn Harrell, Sadao Harada,
and David Requiro; violist Toby Appel; soprano Elly Ameling;
and saxophonists Branford Marsalis, David Sánchez, and Andrew
Speight.
The Alexander String Quartet’s 25th anniversary was also the 20th
anniversary of its association with New York City’s Baruch College
as Ensemble-in-Residence. This landmark was celebrated through
a performance by the ensemble of the Shostakovich string quartet cycle at Engelman Recital Hall in the Baruch Performing Art
Center. Of these performances, The New York Times wrote, “The
intimacy of the music came through with enhanced power and
poignancy in the Alexander quartet’s vibrant, probing, assured and
aptly volatile performances…Seldom have these anguished, playful, ironic and masterly works seemed so profoundly personal.”
The Alexander String Quartet was also awarded Presidential
Medals in honor of its longstanding commitment to the arts and
education and in celebration of two decades of service to Baruch
College.
Highlights of the 2010-2011 season include two multiple-concert
series for San Francisco Performances, one presenting the complete quartets of Bartók and Kodály and the other, music of
Dvořák; the conclusion of a Beethoven cycle for Mondavi Center;
and a continuing annual series at Baruch College in New York
City. The quartet also performs an all-Beethoven program at the
Lied Center of Kansas, two tours of Spain (including the inaugural performances of a new festival in Godella), and a second
tour of Argentina. They also continue their annual residencies
at Allegheny College, Lewis & Clark College, and St. Lawrence
University.
The Alexander String Quartet was formed in New York City in
1981, and the following year became the first string quartet to
win the Concert Artists Guild Competition. In 1985, the quartet
captured international attention as the first American quartet to
win the London International String Quartet Competition, receiving both the jury’s highest award and the Audience Prize. In 1995,
Allegheny College awarded Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees
to the members of the quartet in recognition of their unique
contribution to the arts. Honorary degrees were conferred on the
ensemble by St. Lawrence University in 2000.
In celebration of the Alexander String Quartet’s forthcoming 30th
anniversary, San Francisco Performances has commissioned a new
work for string quartet and mezzo-soprano from Jake Heggie; the
work will be premiered in a performance in collaboration with

Robert Greenberg
Robert Greenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1954, and
has lived in the San Francisco Bay area since 1978. Greenberg
received a B.A. in music, magna cum laude, from Princeton
University in 1976. In 1984, Greenberg received a Ph.D. in music
composition, with distinction, from the University of California,
Berkeley.

Alexander String quartet

Joyce DiDonato in February 2012 at the Herbst Theater. Other
recent Alexander premieres include Rise Chanting by Augusta Read
Thomas, commissioned for the Alexander by the Krannert Center
and premiered there and simulcast by WFMT radio in Chicago.
The quartet has also premiered String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 by
Wayne Peterson and works by Ross Bauer (commissioned by
Stanford University), Richard Festinger, David Sheinfeld, Hi Kyung
Kim, and a Koussevitzky commission by Robert Greenberg.

Van Cliburn Foundation, the Chautauqua Institute (where he was
the Everett Scholar in Residence for the summer of 2006), the
Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra,
and Music@Menlo.
Greenberg has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal, the Times
of London, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, and San
Francisco Chronicle. For many years Greenberg was the resident
composer and music historian to National Public Radio’s Weekend
All Things Considered, and presently plays that role on Weekend
Edition, Sunday with Liane Hansen.
In 1993, Greenberg recorded a 48-lecture course, How to Listen to
and Understand Great Music for the Teaching Company/SuperStar
Teachers Program, the preeminent producer of college level
courses-on-media in the United States. Twelve further courses—
Concert Masterworks, Bach and the High Baroque, The Symphonies
of Beethoven, How to Listen to and Understand Opera, Great Masters,
The Operas of Mozart, The Life and Operas of Verdi, The Symphony,
The Chamber Music of Mozart, The Piano Sonatas of Beethoven, The
Concerto and The Fundamentals of Music—have been recorded
since, totaling more than 500 lectures.
In 2003, the Bangor (Maine) Daily News referred to Greenberg as
“the Elvis of music history and appreciation,” an appraisal that
has given him more pleasure than any other. Dr. Greenberg is currently writing a book on opera and its impact on Western culture,
to be published by Oxford University Press.

Greenberg has composed more than 45 works for a wide variety
of instrumental and vocal ensembles. Recent performances of his
works have taken place in New York, San Francisco, Chicago,
Los Angeles, England, Ireland, Greece, Italy, and the Netherlands,
where his Child’s Play for String Quartet was performed at the
Concertgebouw of Amsterdam.
Greenberg has received numerous honors, including three
Nicola de Lorenzo Composition Prizes and three Meet-TheComposer Grants. Recent commissions have been received from
the Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress, the
Alexander String Quartet, the San Francisco Contemporary Music
Players, the Strata Ensemble, San Francisco Performances, and
the XTET ensemble. Greenberg is a board member and an artistic
director of Composers, Inc., a composers’ collective/production
organization based in San Francisco.
Greenberg has performed, taught, and lectured extensively across
North America and Europe. He is currently music historian-inresidence with San Francisco Performances, where he has lectured
and performed since 1994, and a faculty member of the Advanced
Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton
School of Business. He has served on the faculties of the University
of California, Berkeley; California State University, East Bay; and
the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he chaired the
Department of Music History and Literature from 1989-2001 and
served as the Director of the Adult Extension Division from 19911996. Greenberg has lectured for some of the most prestigious
musical and arts organizations in the United States, including the
San Francisco Symphony (where for 10 years he was host and lecturer for the Symphony’s nationally acclaimed “Discovery Series”),
the Ravinia Festival, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the

As the ninth president of Spelman
College, Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum
set an expectation that Spelman
College would be recognized as
one of the finest liberal arts
colleges in the country – a place
where young women of African
descent could say, “This place was
built for me and it is nothing less
than the best!” With her creative
energy focused on five strategic
goals – Academic Excellence,
Leadership Development, Improving
our Environment, Visibility of our
Achievements, and Exemplary
Customer Service (collectively
known as Spelman ALIVE), Spelman
College has experienced great
growth.
Dr. Tatum is widely recognized as an
accomplished adminitrator, scholar,
teacher, race relations expert and
leader in higher education. The
recipient of numerous honorary
degrees, in 2005 Dr. Tatum was
awarded the prestigious Brock
International Prize in Education for
her innovative leadership in the
field. Her best-selling titles include

Can We Talk About Race? And Other
Conversations in an Era of School
Resegregation (2007) and Why Are
All the Black Kids Sitting Together in
the Cafeteria? And Other
Conversations About Race (1997).

BEVERLY DANIEL TATUM, PH.D.
December 10, 2010
- - Author’s Talk:

Why Are All the Black
Kids Sitting Together in
the Cafeteria?

Actively involved in the Atlanta
community, Dr. Tatum is a member
of several boards and of several
national non-profit boards Appointed by President Obama, she is a
member of the Advisory Board for
the White House Initiative on
Historically Black Colleges and
Universities. She also serves on the
Georgia Power corporate board of
directors.
Dr. Tatum earned a B.A. degree in
psychology from Wesleyan
University, M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical
psychology from University of
Michigan and a M.A. in Religious
Studies from Hartford Seminary.
She has served as a faculty member
at UC Santa Barbara, Westfield State
College, and Mount Holyoke
College, where she also served as
dean and acting president.

8 PM – 9:30 PM, Jackson Hall, Robert
and Margrit Mondavi Center for the
Performing Arts
The Campus Community Book
Project is sponsored by the
Office of Campus Community
Relations, Offices of the
Chancellor and Provost.

The artists and your fellow audience members appreciate silence during the performance. Please be sure that you have switched off all electronic devices.
Videotaping, photographing, and audio recording are strictly forbidden. Violators are subject to removal.

Mariachi los Camperos is led by Natividad “Nati” Cano. A
traditionalist and a visionary, Cano has both mirrored and shaped
the history of mariachi music. He was born in 1933 into a family
of mariachi musicians in Jalisco, Mexico, one of the many west
Mexican communities that gave life to the mariachi tradition. His
career took him first to nearby Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city, and then further away to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, he
and Los Camperos emerged as a major driving force of the mariachi music tradition in the United States.
Los Camperos de Nati Cano has existed for nearly 50 years and
is noted for demanding musical arrangements that highlight the
individual skills and voices of the players. The ensemble employs
the finest musicians from Mexico and the United States and has
performed for audiences worldwide.
In December 2006, Cano’s contributions to the American music
landscape were recognized when he became one of the first artists nationwide to win a USA Fellowship from United States
Artists. In its inaugural year, United States Artists awarded 50
USA Fellowships to a total of 54 artists. Cano was one of only five
musicians to be named a USA Fellow in the inaugural year.
Mariachi los Camperos was one of four mariachis that collaborated on Linda Ronstadt’s album Canciones de Mi Padre (Songs of
my Father). In 1988-89, the group worked on the promotion of
the album, including national television appearances on programs
including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and the Grammy
Awards telecast. They also appear on Linda Ronstadt’s Mas
Canciones (More Songs).
The ensemble has recorded 10 albums: Puro Mariachi (Indigo
Records, 1961); North of the Border (RCA/Carino Records, 1965);
El Super Mariachi, Los Camperos (Latin International, 1968);
Valses de Amor (La Fonda Records, 1973); Canciones de Siempre
(PolyGram Latino, 1993); Sounds of Mariachi (Delfin Records,

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mariachi los camperso de nati cano

Mariachi los Camperos de Nati Cano

1996); Fiesta Navidad (Delfin Records, 1997); Viva el Mariachi
(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 2003); Llegaron Los Camperos
(Smithsonian Folkways, 2005); and Amor, Dolor y Lágrima
(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 2008). Los Camperos shared
a 2005 Best Musical Album for Children Grammy Award for cEL‑
LAbration!, A tribute to Ella Jenkins. In 2006, the album Llegaron
Los Camperos was nominated for a Grammy in the category of
Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album. In 2009, Amor, Dolor y
Lágrima won the 2009 Grammy for Best Regional Mexican Album.
In 2010-11, Mariachi los Camperos will be touring with a special
program, Viva Mexico, to commemorate the bicentennial of Mexico
and the ensemble’s 50th anniversary.
Jesus “Chuy” Guzman, Musical Director
Widely recognized as an arranger, director, instructor, and musician in the genre of Mexican mariachi music, Jesus “Chuy”
Guzman is the musical director of Mariachi los Camperos and
master of such traditional mariachi instruments as trumpet, vihue‑
la, guitarrón, guitar, and violin. Over the last decade, Guzman has
served as head instructor for more than 40 international mariachi
festivals in the Unites States and Mexico and continues as the
instructor for Ethnomusicology 91K, Music of México, at the
University of California, Los Angeles. His career highlights include
collaboration on the orchestration and musical arrangements for
the Symphony Orchestra of Jalisco and recording as a guest artist
with the prestigious Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán. Guzman also
toured and recorded with Linda Ronstadt on her Grammy Awardwinning album, Canciones de mi Padre, and has appeared in several
Hollywood films, including Mi Familia and Jerry Maguire.
Instruments of Mariachi
The original mariachi came from rural western México, primarily
the states of Jalisco, Colima, Michoacán, Nayarit, and Sinaloa. The
first groups were string-based ensembles, making the term mariachi “band” inappropriate as bands, by definition, emphasize brass
and woodwinds. The first mariachi instrumentation consisted primarily of violins and the diatonic harp—a non-pedal and, therefore, non-chromatic instrument. The harp provided rhythmic and
harmonic support while the violins played the melodic lines. As
the mariachi ensemble developed, a small, generally five-stringed
flat-back guitar, called quinta or guitarra de golpe was added to
support the rhythm. The five-stringed vihuela, a round-back
instrument, along with the more recent addition of the guitar,
provides the underlying rhythm essential for the musical sound
of every mariachi ensemble. The guitarrón, a larger round-back
instrument, plays the bass line. The original guitarrón used four
or five gut strings; eventually the instrument became standardized
with six nylon strings, giving it sufficient volume to support the
bass. Because it is capable of modulating to different keys (and
easier to carry), the guitarrón eventually replaced the harp in most
ensembles. In the early 1930s, when the ensembles began to think
in terms of arrangements and commercial possibilities, a trumpet
was added, the rationale being that it would create a better, more
penetrating sound for radio broadcasts. In later years, two trumpets have become a standard part of mariachi ensembles, although
it is not uncommon to find three or more in some of today’s
groups.

Program Notes
I notice that our audience is getting younger—and they are giving
us a lot of energy. The people who come to our concerts want to
hear the best new stuff we can find. We’re always on the lookout
for what charges us up. We seek work that is exciting and something we haven’t been a part of before. I’m interested in making
artistic experiences that are very focused, strong, and intensely
human.
We’re living in a very fertile time for musicians. The world of
music is a more dynamic and diverse place than it was back in
1973 when Kronos started. I feel I’m continually on the edge of my
chair, and I want to spend my time encouraging artists to stretch
beyond what they ever imagined they could accomplish.
This program—created especially for the Mondavi Center—
includes music originally written for film by Clint Mansell
(Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain), music by the Icelandic rock
band Sigur Rós and the Mexican band Café Tacuba, a quartet
by Bryce Dessner (guitarist of The National), the first American
performance of a new piece by French composer Thierry Pécou,
and works by 30-something composers Raz Mesinai and Missy
Mazzoli. All of this music was written or arranged especially for
Kronos.
Bringing elements into our live shows that haven’t been there
before is something I’ve tried to do since we formed Kronos. With
fellow artists, I want to explore what it means to be a musician,
what a concert is and what a musical experience is in 2010.
—David Harrington
Artistic Director, Kronos Quartet

18

| mondaviarts.org

Aheym (2009)
Bryce Dessner (born 1976)
Bryce Dessner is a composer/guitarist/curator based in New York
City, best known as the guitarist for the rock band The National.
Their albums Alligator (2005) and Boxer (2007) were named albums
of the year in publications throughout the world; High Violet was
released in 2010. Dessner has received widespread acclaim as a composer and guitarist for the improvising quartet Clogs. He has performed and/or recorded with Sufjan Stevens, Antony Hegarty, Sonic
Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo, Philip Glass, Michael Gordon, the Bang
on a Can All-Stars, and visual artist Matthew Ritchie, among others.
He premiered and recorded 2x5 by Steve Reich in 2009.
As a composer, he is the recipient of a Jerome Grant from the
American Composers Forum and the Kitchen (New York), for a
full concert of his music in 2007, and a commission from Thyssen
Bornemisza Art Contemporary (Vienna) to create a 40-minute spatial sound work for the Morning Line, an outdoor sound pavilion
by Matthew Ritchie. He has also received commissions from the
Rosenbach Library in Philadelphia in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s
bicentennial, and BAM’s Next Wave Festival for The Long Count, an
evening-length work with his brother Aaron Dessner. He composed
the score for Turn the River, a film written and directed by Chris
Eigman.
Dessner is the creator and artistic director of the Music Now Festival
in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the co-founder and owner of the Brassland
record label. He and Aaron Dessner recently produced an AIDS charity compilation, Dark Was the Night, for the Red Hot Organization.
Dessner serves on the board of The Kitchen and is a graduate of Yale
College and the Yale School of Music.

“‘Aheym’ means ‘homeward’ in Yiddish, and this piece is written as
musical evocation of the idea of flight and passage. As little boys,
my brother and I used to spend hours with my grandmother, asking her about the details of how she came to America. She could
only give us a smattering of details, but they all found their way
into our collective imagination, eventually becoming a part of our
own cultural identity and connection to the past. In her poem ‘Di
rayzeaheym,’ the American-Yiddish poet Irena Klepfisz, a professor
at Barnard in New York and one of the few child survivors of the
Warsaw Ghetto, writes: ‘Among strangers is her home. Here right
here she must live. Her memories will become monuments.’”
“Aheym is dedicated to my grandmother, Sarah Dessner.”
Bryce Dessner’s Aheym was written for the Kronos Quartet.

Kronos Quartet

About Aheym, Dessner writes: “David Harrington asked me to
write a piece for Kronos Quartet for a performance in Prospect
Park, Brooklyn. I live just two blocks from the park and spend
many mornings running around it. The park for me symbolizes
much of what I love about New York, especially the stunning
diversity of Brooklyn with its myriad cultures and communities.
My father’s family, Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia, also
lived near the park for many years in the 1940s and 1950s before
moving to Queens. In discussing the new piece, David proposed
to perform the work in Brooklyn, and then to retrace the journey
of my grandparents and perform it in Lodz, Poland, a city where
my great-grandparents lived and through which my grandmother
passed on her voyage to America.

Harrington of Kronos and arranger Stephen Prutsman met the
members of Sigur Rós and were invited to visit their studio outside
of Reykjavík. The two ensembles later rehearsed together in
Iceland.
Born in Los Angeles in 1960, Stephen Prutsman began playing the
piano by ear before more formal music studies. In his early teens
he was the keyboard player for several rock groups, including
Cerberus and Vysion. In the early 1990s, he was a medal winner at
the Tchaikovsky and Queen Elisabeth piano competitions, which
led to performances in various prestigious music centers and with
leading orchestras in the U.S. and Europe. In 2004, Prutsman was
appointed to a three-year term to the position of Artistic Partner
with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, where he acts as composer,
arranger, conductor, program host, and pianist. Prutsman’s long collaboration with Kronos has resulted in more than 40 arrangements
of distinctive and varying musical languages.
Stephen Prutsman’s arrangement of Flugufrelsarinn was
commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by the Reykjavik Arts
Festival. Kronos’ recording of Flugufrelsarinn is available as a
download through the iTunes Store.
Program note by Matthew Campbell.
Death Is the Road to Awe from The Fountain (2006)
Clint Mansell (born 1963)
Arranged by Kronos Quartet
Recorded track performed by Mogwai

Flugufrelsarinn (The Fly Freer) (1999/arr. 2002)
Arranged by Stephen Prutsman (born 1960)
The Icelandic group Sigur Rós is at the forefront of invention in
today’s international rock scene. Led by the ethereal vocals and
hauntingly bowed guitar of Jón Thor (“Jónsi”) Birgisson, the group
leaves traditional song forms on some lower, less magical plane,
slipping instead into ever-shifting environments of sound.
It also doesn’t get much more enigmatic. Beyond the difficulties
for non-Icelandic speakers in understanding some of Jónsi’s lyrics,
there is the fact that Jónsi sings the remainder of his songs in a
self-invented language he calls Hopelandish. In its original, sung
version, Flugufrelsarinn relates a parable of salvation and sacrifice,
in which an unnamed narrator tries to rescue helpless flies in a
lake from the jaws of the approaching salmon.
Fortunately the critical and popular response to Sigur Rós has
been anything but enigmatic: In addition to its early fans around
the world—including fellow musicians like David Bowie, Beck, the
band Radiohead, and, of course, Kronos—the group reached new
audiences through the inclusion of one of its songs, Svefn-g-englar
(Dreams of Angels), on the soundtrack for the film Vanilla Sky. In
2001, Sigur Rós earned still more recognition in this country as
the winner of the prestigious Shortlist Prize for new music.

The Fountain, a feature film written and directed by Darren
Aronofsky, follows one man’s epic journey told through three concurrent storylines that take place in three eras: 16th-century Spain,
modern day America, and deep space in the 26th century. The
music on the soundtrack, composed by Clint Mansell and recorded
by Kronos and the Glasgow-based band Mogwai, received a Golden
Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score.
Clint Mansell, composer of the score to The Fountain, was the
front man and a founding member of the pioneering English rock/
hip-hop band, Pop Will Eat Itself. Mansell played guitar and keyboards for the band, which released five albums for RCA/BMG
Records and Trent Reznor’s Nothing Records between 1986 and
1996.
Mansell first worked with Aronofsky when he composed the original score for PI in 1997. Since then, Mansell has worked on scores
and soundtracks for such films as Requiem for a Dream (2000),
World Traveler (2002), and Abandon (2002) and produced remixes
from Pi and Requiem for a Dream.
The soundtrack to The Fountain was released on Nonesuch
Records.

In light of Sigur Rós’s own wide-ranging music, it is no surprise
to discover that the group’s members are enthusiastic fans of the
Kronos Quartet. After hearing Sigur Rós’s 1999 breakthrough
album, Ágætis Byrjun, and seeing the group in concert, David

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MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Dec 2010 |

19

kronos quartet

further listening

by jeff hudson
The Kronos Quartet has released upwards of 40 albums over a period
of nearly 30 years, and along the way the technology platform for those
recordings has changed from vinyl and cassettes to CDs, DVDs, and downloads. That’s a lot of material to explore, but to a degree, because Kronos
tends to come back to certain composers and certain ideas over time,
you can do a bit of grouping. There are:
The numerous projects with composer Terry Riley
This relationship goes back to 1978, when Riley was teaching at Mills
College in Oakland, and Kronos (then a young group, getting established)
had relocated to the Bay Area, and were recruited by Mills as artists in
residence. Kronos asked Riley to write a piece for the group, and in 1980,
Riley finished “Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector” (which was
included in the 1985 Kronos/Riley album Cadenza on a Night Plain).
Other Kronos/Riley recordings include the two-disc Salome Dances for Peace
(1989), Requiem for Adam (2001), and The Cusp of Magic (2008). Mondavi
Center audiences will also recall Sun Rings, which is scored for string
quartet and large choir with sounds from space recorded by the Voyager
probe—Kronos performed the piece in Jackson Hall in 2005, with Riley in
attendance. Kronos is still hoping to get a Sun Rings DVD into release at
some point.
The projects with other Western composers
The 1995 disc Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass includes the composer’s
String Quartet No. 5, written for Kronos. The group has also recorded
three discs of quartets by Polish composer Henryk Górecki, one by Polish
composer Witold Lutoslawski, one by Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke,
and works by Alban Berg and Anton Webern of the Second Viennese
School. Kronos has also released discs of American music by early radical
Harry Partch, minimalist Steve Reich, and minimalist-turned-mainstream
composer John Adams.
The world music albums
Kronos loves to go four-wheeling beyond the usual string quartet repertoire. Projects have touched down musically, and sometimes physically, in
Argentina (Five Tango Sensations by Astor Piazzolla, 1991), Pieces of Africa
(1992), China (Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera, 1997), Mexico (Nuevo, 2002),
Bollywood (You’ve Stolen My Heart, 2005), Azerbaijan (Mugam Sayagi,
2005), and most recently, Floodplain (last year, with music “from cultures
based in areas surrounded by water and prone to catastrophic flooding”).
And a special mention should be made of Black Angels, the 1990 album
taking its title from George Crumb’s searing musical vision (subtitled
“Thirteen Visions of the Dark Land”) composed during the Vietnam War.
David Harrington of Kronos has said on a number of occasions that this
piece motivated him to organize the group. Also on the album is the
gloomy, anguished Quartet No. 8 by Dmitri Shostakovich (written when the
composer was contemplating suicide, and dedicated to the victims of fascism
and war) and “Doom: A Sigh” by Hungarian-born composer István Mártha.
Needless to say, this album is anything but cheerful, but it’s a one-of-a-kind
landmark, and a recording of which Harrington is particularly proud.

Jeff Hudson contributes coverage of the performing
arts to Capital Public Radio, the Davis Enterprise,
and Sacramento News and Review.

Missy Mazzoli, born in Pennsylvania, has had her music performed all over the world by the Minnesota Orchestra, eighth
blackbird, South Carolina Philharmonic, Spokane Symphony,
Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, NOW Ensemble, and others. She has
been commissioned by Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, the
Whitney Museum, Carnegie Hall, and the League of Composers/
ISCM Orchestra. Mazzoli’s critically acclaimed multi-media chamber opera Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle
Eberhardt, premiered in Brooklyn in 2009.
Mazzoli is a recipient of a Fulbright Grant to the Netherlands,
three ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Awards, a Charles
Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters, and grants from the American Music Center, the Jerome
Foundation, and the Greenwall Foundation. In 2006, Mazzoli
was a featured composer at Merkin Hall (New York) and the
Gaudeamus New Music Festival (Amsterdam), and in 2007, she
taught beginning composition at Yale University. She is Executive
Director of the MATA Festival of New Music in New York, an organization founded by Philip Glass dedicated to commissioning and
promoting new works by young composers.
Mazzoli is also an active pianist, and often performs with Victoire,
an all-female quintet she founded in 2008, dedicated exclusively to
her own compositions. Victoire has performed in venues throughout New York and recently appeared at the 2009 Bang-on-a-Can
Marathon. Their debut EP is A Door into the Dark.
About Harp and Altar, Mazzoli writes: “Harp and Altar is a love
song to the Brooklyn Bridge. The title comes from a poem by Hart
Crane, in which he describes the Brooklyn Bridge as ‘that harp and
altar of the Fury fused.’ The Borough of Brooklyn is impossible to
describe, but the Brooklyn Bridge seems to be an apt symbol for
its vastness, its strength and its history. Halfway through the work
the vocalist sings fragments of these lines from Crane’s poem ‘The
Bridge’:
Through the bound cable strands, the arching path
Upward, veering with light, the flight of strings,
Taut miles of shuttling moonlight syncopate
The whispered rush, telepathy of wires.
“Crane lived for some time at 110 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn,
in an apartment overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge. Only after
completing his poem did Crane learn that one of its key builders,
Washington Roebling, had once lived at the same address. Every
day I take long walks around my Brooklyn neighborhood, often
ending up at the site of the house where Crane lived when he
wrote these lines. In writing this piece for the Kronos Quartet I
tried to imagine the Brooklyn Bridge through Crane’s eyes, a new
monument to technology, a symbol of optimism and faith.
“Many thanks to the Kronos Quartet, Gabriel Kahane, Margaret
Dorfman, and the Ralph I. Dorfman Family Fund for making this
work possible.”
Sampled Vocals by Gabriel Kahane.
Missy Mazzoli’s Harp and Altar was commissioned for Kronos
Quartet by Margaret Dorfman and the Ralph I. Dorfman Family
Fund.
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Kronos Quartet

Harp and Altar (2009)
Missy Mazzoli (born 1980)

Les Rameursobscurs de la barque de Rê (2010)
Thierry Pécou (b. 1965)
For Thierry Pécou, to live is to travel, and to travel is to write, as
if composing were both plunging into another universe, taking
emotional possession of the places, and above all, stepping back—
voluntarily becoming marginalized in relation to one’s everyday
cultural milieu.
Born in Paris, Thierry Pécou began studying the piano at the
age of nine and continued his studies at the Paris Conservatoire
Supérieur, where he won First Prizes in orchestration and composition. He was a pensioner at La Casa de Velázquez in Madrid,
and laureate of the Prix Villa Médicis Hors les Murs. He has won
numerous prizes, including the Tribune Internationale des compositeurs de l’UNESCO (1990),Prix Georges Enesco et des jeunes
compositeurs de la SACEM (1993 and 2004), Prix Musique de la
SACD (1999), Prix Simone & Cino del Duca for the Composer
2010 by the Academy of Beaux Arts, and Prix de la Meilleure
Création Musicale 2010 by the Syndicat de la Critique for his second opera L’Amourcoupable.
He has written more than 80 works, often commissions by
institutions and performers such as the Kronos Quartet, pianist Alexandre Tharaud, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. His
music has been performed at concert seasons and festivals, including the Radio-France Festival Présences, Gaudeamus MusicWeek in Amsterdam, Autumn in Moscow, New Music Concerts
Toronto, Foro Internacional de Musica Nueva de Mexico, Festival
d’Ambronay, Tampere Choir Festival (Finland), Auditorium de
Nagasaki, Théâtre de la Ville and des Champs Elysées in Paris, and
Octobre en Normandie.
His Garden of the Sage, a composition involving Chinese traditional instruments, commissioned by GRAME, was premiered at
the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010. Also this year, the world
premiere of his acclaimed opera L’Amourcoupable, based on
Beaumarchais’ La Mèrecoupable, on a libretto by Eugene Green,
was presented at the Rouen Opera in France.
About Les Rameursobscurs de la barque de Rê (The Dark Rowers of
Ra’s Barque), Pécou writes: “For those who have yet to experience
it, Egypt, so many thousands of years old, looms as a huge and
fascinating monument on account of the richness and complexity of
its history, which goes from the mists of time up to the present day.
“David Harrington asked me to compose for Kronos Quartet a
work about Egypt in which many different layers of time would
be blurred. I have tried to make of this score for string quartet and
prerecorded sounds an imaginary plunge through various facets of
Egypt and Cairo. Mixing the present day and antiquity, I took my
inspiration from a passage in the Egyptian Book of the Dead that
tells of the mysterious night voyage of the sun god Ra, who travels
on his boat between life and death towards a new cycle of life.
“Water, the primordial element of the land of the Nile and the
annual Nile River flood, is symbolized by musical motifs evoking fluidity, which tie together different episodes and punctuate
the score as a whole. We hear the luxuriant noises of Cairo, the
contemporary megalopolis; the Arabic rhythms and melodies of a
frenzied dance; the timeless call to prayer; the silence of the desert;
an ancient chant punctuated by the sounds of sistrums [ancient
tambourines] as they emerge from the sand at an archaeological

MONDAVI CENTER PROGRAM Issue 4: Dec 2010 |

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Kronos Quartet

dig; and then a hypnotic progression leading to the final, dazzling
experience of the sun.â&#x20AC;?
Thierry PĂŠcouâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comments translated from the French by Marion
Lignana Rosenberg.
Electronic recordings were realized by Max Bruckert/GRAME,
Centre National de CrĂŠation Musicale, Lyon.
Thierry PĂŠcouâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Les Rameursobscurs de la barque de RĂŞ was commissioned for Kronos Quartet by the French-American Fund for
Contemporary Music, a program of FACE with major support from
the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, SACEM, Cultures
France, and the Florence Gould Foundation. Â
Crossfader (2007)
Raz Mesinai (born in Jerusalem in1973)
Raz Mesinai was born in Jerusalem in 1973. His first two decades
were spent in frequent transit between Jerusalem and New York
City, where he became immersed in both the worlds of traditional
Middle Eastern music and the dub and hip-hop scenes of the
eighties and early nineties in New York City. He became involved
in the avant-garde, downtown music scene of New York City, performing, improvising, and leading his own ensembles on percussion, piano, and sampler.
Mesinaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s electronic and electro-acoustic music exists at the crossroads of composition, sound design, and modern studio production. His acclaimed recordings under the moniker Badawi, and
as one-half of the seminal duo Sub Dub (with John Ward), are
difficult to classify, but have been called hybrid electronica/dub/
percussion/avant-garde compositions. Since 1999, Mesinai has
been releasing music under his own name as well, including three
releases on John Zornâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tzadik label.
Mesinai has collaborated with many of New Yorkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s top musicians,
including Eyvind Kang, Mark Dresser, Marc Ribot, Mark Feldman,
John Zorn, Shelley Hirsch, Elliott Sharp, and Zeena Parkins,
among many others. His work has been commissioned by the
Lincoln Center Festival, the Jerome Foundation, and the American
Music Center. In 2001, Soldier of Midian (ROIR) received an award
from the Ars Electronica festival. In 2002, Raz was a featured artist in the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Next, Next Waveâ&#x20AC;? festival of the Brooklyn Academy of
Music, and opened for Nubian master musician Hamza El Din at
Lincoln Center. In 2004, following his developing interest in visual
narrative and storytelling in music, Mesinai was a Fellow at the
Sundance Composerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lab where he had the opportunity to participate in workshops with such artists as John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov,
and Thomas Newman. He is currently scoring several films.
About Crossfader, Mesinai writes: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Written for the Kronos Quartet,
Crossfader incorporates the rhythms, pulses, and full-throttle
energy of electronic dance music into the string quartet medium.
Although it was initially written for string quartet and electronics,
I realized that all of the sounds I wanted could be derived straight
from the instruments alone. By using the many splendid extended
techniques that a stringed instrument can deliver, the players simulate such effects as delays, phasers, and flanging used in modern
electronic dance music.â&#x20AC;?
Raz Mesinaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Crossfader was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet
by Deborah and Creig Hoyt.
22

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Requiem for a Dream Suite (2000)
Clint Mansell (born 1963)
Arranged by David Lang (born 1957)
Backing track performed by Clint Mansell
Requiem for a Dream, a feature film directed and co-written by
Darren Aronofsky, was adapted from the 1978 novel by Hubert
Selby, Jr. Set on the streets of Coney Island, Brooklyn, the film is
a harrowing journey into the psyches of four people addicted to
their visions of a happier life.
Clint Mansell, composer of the score to Requiem for a Dream, was
the front man and a founding member of the pioneering English
rock/hip-hop band Pop Will Eat Itself. Mansell played guitar and
keyboards for the band, which released five albums for RCA/BMG
Records and Trent Reznorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Nothing Records between 1986 and
1996.
Mansell first worked with Aronofsky when he composed the original score for PI in 1997. Since then, Mansell has worked on scores
and soundtracks for such films as World Traveler (2002) and
Abandon (2002) and produced remixes from PI and Requiem for a
Dream. Their most recent collaboration, also featuring performances by Kronos, can be heard on the soundtrack to The Fountain
(2006), which was nominated for a Best Original Score Golden
Globe Award and won 2007 World Soundtrack Awards for Best
Original Score of the Year and the Public Choice Award. Mansellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
music for Requiem for a Dream has become extremely popular,
appearing in numerous film trailers and sampled by artists ranging
from Paul Oakenfold to Lil Jon.
Composer David Lang is co-founder and co-artistic director of
Bang on a Can, an organization dedicated to adventurous new
music. Langâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recent projects include the amplified orchestra piece
The Passing Measures (named one of the best CDs of 2001 by The
New Yorker); Writing on Water for the London Sinfonietta, with
visuals by English filmmaker Peter Greenaway; The Difficulty
of Crossing a Field, an opera for the Kronos Quartet; Grind to a
Halt for the San Francisco Symphony; and The Little Match Girl
Passion, an opera with Paul Hiller and Theatre of Voices that premiered in Carnegie Hall in 2007. His most recent CD is Elevated
(Cantaloupe), which includes a DVD of Langâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collaborations with
visual artists William Wegman, Bill Morrison, and Matt Mullican.
The soundtrack to Requiem for a Dream, featuring the Kronos
Quartet, was released on Nonesuch Records.